Volume 2, Days 86-88
My second attempt to traverse a distant from city to city via Blablacar was also a failure. I’m really not sure if it is something you are supposed to book in advance or go after last minute, but multiple reachouts to the driver(s) who posted their plans far in advance were completely stonewalled, and resulted in automatic defaults.
I spent the morning kicking around the hostel, splitting my time between studying German and optimizing/testing/debugging my vocabulary training system, which seems to be coming together quite nicely. Of course, with regards to German this means the biggest shortfall is the lack of clarity and consensus among the vocabulary lists, so I have some tedious days ahead of me coming through word lists to try to clean up the data.
Shortly after noon, I gave up on getting a cheap ride and took the bus over to the train station. I was a little surprised to find that Ulm did not offer a cheaper “short distance” fare, but paid the stupid bus fare for the 3-4 stops. In the station, I bought my ticket and noticing that the once an hour regional train was delayed a bit, looked rather longingly at the two bakeries and Burger King in the train station, but decided against grabbing any sort of lunch. To be fair, I had had a spot of breakfast, toasting up the remainder of the rye loaf from yesterday and smearing a bit of sour cherry jam rescued from the “food share” bin.
The train was both late and more crowded than I have ever seen a train. It didn’t help that there were so many bicycles and baby carriages occupying the lower level section to which I, with my large suitcase, was also relegated. After nearly a ten minute delay, we set out from the station and the conductor made a beeline for the two African men, whom I was secretly judging for being assholes and taking up seats that should have been given to mothers with young children.
It was about an hour to Stuttgart, and I emerged into the haunted house of a train station. Apparently, Stuttgart has a “big dig” of its own with some endless construction project to revitalize the area around the train station. As a result, except for the trains themselves, the inside of the train station has been mostly gutted. I went directly into the underground station and paid what also looked like an usurious price to take the public transport some four stops to my hostel, which a short but uphill climb from the above ground U-bahn station. (Hills! Stuttgart has hills. It is literally the first city I’ve visited in Germany on this trip to have hills.)
I checked in, which entailed climbing the stairs to the third floor (where ground floor was even up a half flight of stairs) to drop my stuff off in the small and body odor infused dorm room. I glanced around suspiciously to figure out who has not been keeping up with their laundry on these hot, sweaty days.
I sat in the bar lounge for a bit before heading out to find an Aldi. Though there were many closer supermarkets, I needed to track down an Aldi in order to top up my phone credit. It sucks so bad. I had almost 3 euros of credit left on the last day of the billing term, but the next four weeks need 3.99. It’s not possible to buy just 1 euro of credit, so in order to keep my phone internet connected for an extra 9-10 days, I am shelling out 5 euros. This was no light decision, I have spent the last 2 weeks thinking about it. I suppose on the bright side, I own this number, so the extra credit will theoretically still be there when (if) I return to Europe.
While in the Aldi, I decided to buy a bunch of groceries to cook up a storm in the kitchen. I was feeling Tex-Mex and bought ground beef, kidney beans, “wraps,” etc. It was a good, if longish, walk to and from the Aldi, taking me through the central pedestrian zones of Stuttgart, including the site of the ongoing annual wine festival. (Stuttgart also has vineyards in the area, so maybe on another trip it would be fun to go visiting those on a Weinwanderweg). Now, while it would have been good to try some wine at the festival, I saw the prices and nearly soiled myself. I could buy two bottles of wine in the supermarket for the price of a sample (0.1L short pour). The residents of Stuttgart don’t share my price sensitivity and every table was full of people swigging wine and chowing down on the Swabian fare.
I cooked, ate two burrito-sized soft tacos, and shoved the rest of the food into the fridge (I really lucked out that there were tupperware containers available). I stopped myself after finishing almost half the German wine bottle I had picked up and wandered the hostel somewhat bored. I had eaten out on the terrace/biergarten, but nothing was happening there. I settled in the bar lounge with my computer and a desire to do more German studying. Though there were only a handful of people in the lounge and all were immersed in their own electronics, the staff brought out bowls of peanuts. I resisted as long as I could, but the temptation was too great, and then the desired effect took hold and I ordered a beer from the bar. Fortunately for me, they have a special discount on your first “welcome” drink.
A skinny fellow sat at my table with a store bought salad and fruit cup, and after a while I got to talking to him. He happened to be from Hong Kong and I tried to pick his brain about the protests. We commiserated. He had to leave and an Italian fellow I had seen prowling about with a bottle of beer essentially took his place. The Italian kid was interesting… he had spent his month long holiday on a motorcycle tour, cutting up through Eastern Europe in the Scandinavian countries (even reaching Finland’s northernmost point), but as he had to be back in work on Monday had traversed 600-800 km a day the past 2/3 days. Despite the utter exhaustion of the return fugue, he was keen to go out and party.
A Swiss couple invited us out to a “pub” and we assented. In my reading up on Stuttgart, I had spotted a few interesting places to possibly get a glass of beer. There was a bit of an adventure that night. One museum was turned into a pool party of some sorts. We looked but didn’t stop there. Instead we traversed the main stretch of town to go to the Palace of the Republic, a former public toilet turned into a bar. It was popular, with hundreds of patrons spilled out into the plaza all around it. The beer wasn’t anything special and after sitting a bit too long on the ground we made maneuvers. I was thinking about finding a late night kiosk for a cheap beer, but the Swiss couple were keen on checking out the wine festival.
Of course, seeing the prices with their own two (four?) eyes sent shivers down the spines of those even used to the insane prices in Switzerland. The aim shifted to getting some food for the Italian, who ordered a Flammkuchen which took ten minutes to come out. After some discussion, it seemed the best plan would be to return to the hostel, where the Swiss couple redeemed their welcome drink coupons for cocktails and I drank from my bottle of white in the fridge. The Italian, rested up now, carried forth on his resolve to go clubbing at some techno party and disappeared into the night. He in turn was replaced by a British cyclist, who also happened to be a militant vegan. After the conversation going on a bit too long for my taste, I went upstairs and crashed.
| Bus | 2.3 |
| Train | 14.3 |
| U-bahn | 2.5 |
| Hostel (3 nights) | 48.99 (cc) |
| Aldi | 17.11 |
| Beer(s) | 4.5 |
| Total: | 89.7 EUR (699.7 RMB) (USD 97.55) |
Running Total: 31784.9 RMB (USD 4431.80)
Daily Average: 369.6 RMB (51.53)